Dear Chancellor Miller:
On May 9, you announced that you were initiating a process to "rethink" our university's approach to diversity and inclusion. Then, on August 16, you announced that eleven individuals agreed to serve on your Chancellor’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. For the following reasons, I find the composition of the committee to be deeply problematic.
1. Your inclusion committee is 0% white male. I have written three books dealing with campus diversity issues. I have been invited to speak on issues of diversity (largely ideological) at 78 college campuses. Over the last ten years, I have written nearly 900 columns, the majority of which have dealt with diversity issues. I am certainly among the most qualified people you could have invited to serve on your diversity committee. But you did not reach out to me. There is but one explanation for this. You have deliberately excluded white males from your discussions of inclusion. If there is a non-racist or non-sexist explanation for the fact that your committee is 0% white male, I'd like to hear it.
2. Your inclusion committee is 82% female. Over a decade ago, our school launched, at taxpayer expense, a new Women's Resource Center. It was strange, given that the student body was then 68% female. Put simply, we need to stop pretending that women are a minority here at UNC-Wilmington. If you want to be inclusive then you should include more men on your inclusion committee. Men are the real minority here at UNC-Women Everywhere.
3. You need to be sensitive to religious diversity. If you do a little quick research on RateMyProfessors.com you will find something interesting. There is one professor you placed on the committee who teaches in the area of religion. A student recently accused him of grading students down for "answering too religiously." The anonymous accusation doesn't amount to guilt. But ask yourself whether Professor Burgh would be on the committee if he were even once accused of race or gender insensitivity, instead of religious viewpoint discrimination. Then think about why this country was established. It wasn't founded on principles of racial or gender identity politics. It was founded on principles of religious freedom.
Recommended
4. One cannot support both inclusion and domestic terrorism. Bill Ayers was an education professor who used to make pipe bombs for the purpose of blowing up his political enemies. He stopped doing that when some of his fellow domestic terrorists blew themselves up in the process of making one of the pipe bombs. Just a few years ago, one of our education professors signed a petition in support of Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist. You have now placed that professor on the inclusion committee. Of course, we should all agree that blowing up one's political enemies tends to run contrary to the spirit of tolerance and inclusion that you wish to promote. So I would respectfully suggest that you should have appointed a professor who opposes domestic terrorists, rather than one who publicly supports them.
5. There are no white students on your committee. There are two Hispanics and one black student on your committee. One works with El Centro Hispano. One works with the Black Student Union. Oddly, however, you don't have any white students on the committee who also work with the White Student Union, which, of course, does not exist. That's probably why you excluded white students from your efforts to be inclusive. You didn't want any white students asking tough questions like "hey, where's the white student union?" Or "where is El Centro Gringo?"
Your announcement letter continues, saying "We must not waiver in our commitment to create a diverse and inclusive campus environment. I believe most of us agree there is much more to be achieved in these areas." This is just nonsense, Gary. What you are saying here is that you think most people agree with you that there should be more spending in the area of "diversity and inclusion." But you only arrive at such conclusions because people who diverge from your opinion are excluded from your committees, and your circle of influence. That is how bad decisions are made. You should ask students if they are willing to suffer through more tuition increases to fund further expansion of diversity initiatives and see what they say. But make sure you don't exclude all white students from the survey like you excluded them from the committee.
Your letter concludes with your assertion that "It is extremely important that this be a fully transparent and inclusive process." Does this mean you will let me attend the first meeting of your new Chancellor's Committee on Diversity and Inclusion? Additionally, will you let me ask tough questions and publish the committee's answers in my weekly column?
If you won't answer my last two questions in the affirmative, then I ask that you at least be honest about what you're really up to, here. In that case, you could just hang a sign outside your meetings saying "Inclusion in Progress: No White Males Allowed."
Join the conversation as a VIP Member